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  1. Re:Skeptical on Necessity of Dark Energy Questioned · · Score: 1

    Denial!!! I think that that was indicated before as one of the illusions that thought hides behind. Here is what that illusion is, it cannot be "scientifically" shown that something caused something else, "therefore it didn't". This conclusion is really scientific (dualistic) thinking? This is why I'm so skeptical of science, religion, politics, they all use the same methods. Yet science presents itself as being "apart" from (above) the others. Selection, exclusion, don't look through that telescope, it might nullify a pet theory. Religion had center stage then, but has lost some credibility since. You think the central medical establishment is not on it's way to loosing credibility? Then why the groundswell of alternatives?

  2. Re:Skeptical on Necessity of Dark Energy Questioned · · Score: 1

    No, I have not read that much on medical advances, because my main interest is physics, and the internal and external struggle that it has had, to get to where it is. Which seems to be a new realization, or a threshold, similar to the time of Galileo, where the very foundations of science were changed.

    But the issue that you keep ignoring, and the issue that I have kept pressing, is the limitations of thought as a TOOL, for "testing the truth or falsehood of any theory" or for "empiricism". Yet your empiricism seems to be totally unaware of this paradox.

    I don't know what your particular definition of "empiricism" is, but maybe observation is involved, yes? The benefits of observing a situation over an extended period of time, is that it becomes apparent that all thought constructed theories eventually turn out to be incomplete, incorrect, or just plain false. AND the thought constructed explanation for this is always that the original "data or information" was incomplete, and not that the thought process that created it was flawed. Because thought (ego) must be beyond reproach, therefore it hides its flaws in an illusion.

    So again, or one more time, it is about how thought itself works, its modus operandi. It operates in dualities, or in relative contrasts, it needs just such a contrast as "truth and falsehood" to operate at all. It needs to create "closed" systems, although physics is now indicating that such a thing does not exist. That all systems are "open" and everything is affected by everything else. Thought selectively includes things and selectively ignores things, to create the "closed" system that it operates in, and to create the illusion of "empiricism". Because thought itself creates illusions and falsehoods, and thought also creates a false self (or ego) and then proceeds just as if this false self were real, and to hide behind it.

    So why should you trust something (a tool) that seems to only create illusions and falsehoods, (including "empiricism" and "closed" systems) and it does this just because it cannot apprehend the TOTALITY of REALITY, which as Quantum Physics now seems to imply, is outside of the bounds of contrasts and relativistic modes. Thought also seems to create a blindness that this is how it operates and what it is doing, so it even has you taking yourself (ego) seriously. So to state this point, again, in a single sentence: THOUGHT IS THE DECEIVER, IT CANNOT APPREHEND THE TOTALITY OF REALITY, BUT GIVES THE ILLUSION THAT IT CAN. "are just a worthless lying sack of shit", no big EGO here, there is no way that you could be deceiving yourself with this "empirical"??? comment, right?

    You used a prefect example of "theories over time" turning out to be incorrect or incomplete, with the "inoculations to outbreaks of Polio & Tuberculosis" statement. Observation: and it may even be "empirical": Aids has killed more people that Polio ever would have. Aids is most prevalent in Africa, it is believed to have originated there. It is also believed to have originated in Rhesus monkeys, and somehow made the transition to humans. Now in the 50s the serum for Polio vaccination was made from human blood for Europe and the USA, but for Africa it was made from the blood of Rhesus monkeys. "you would know that empiricism is the means of testing the truth or falsehood of any theory", so can your "empiricism" connect the dots here?

  3. Re:Skeptical on Necessity of Dark Energy Questioned · · Score: 1

    Well now, does that trite little tirade not seem to be a little bit personal, maybe because of a little bit of ego bruising. And all the while missing the point that a young child can grasp.

    You indignantly want to know what theories I have read. The whole point is that theories are endless and they do not matter, they could be right and they could be wrong. But since they are created by thought, I was focusing on the mechanism that formed the theories, because if it is flawed then the theories will be flawed. Yes?

    So thought, particularly scientific thought it seems, addresses the particular, specializes and takes things out of context, thought divides and separates, thought contrasts and creates dualities and relativities. That is why Quantum seems to be such a paradox, it seems to be exactly contrary to the normal thought mechanisms. Pointing to a conclusion that nothing can be taken out of context, that everything in all of existence is effected by everything else, that some how everything seems to be connected, and not by the up until now normal scientific mechanisms of time and space, but seeming instantaneous effects /connections at infinite distances.

    So you tell me, that thought works some other way than I have indicated, and that that other way will have no problem comprehending what is implied by the recent discoveries about Quantum physics. Because thought divides, and Quantum unifies, which would seem to be mutually exclusive.

    Why do I use Pons and Fleischman as an example? Because it is the perfect example of the scientific world, and their "can it be duplicated attitude". "I can't duplicate it so it must be wrong, and these guys must be liars". That's the specialization and thought process flaws (separation/division) coming into play, instead of asking what is either missing, or present in the duplication, that is different from the original. (might even be the position relative to magnetic fields, or solar radiation, who knows) The concept that there really are "closed" systems is nothing but a flawed mental exercise and not a REALITY. Quantum physics is indicating that every system is "open" and is acted upon by everything else. The normal thought mechanisms plain and simply cannot grasp the totality of this implication.

    All I was suggesting that evolution might take care of this little dilemma by providing a different kind of awareness. That we might be on a "QUANTUM" threshold with respect to this awareness evolution. Where the days of thought created theories are ended, and we plainly and simply "know the truth about reality in it's totality".

  4. Re:Skeptical on Necessity of Dark Energy Questioned · · Score: 1

    Well have a little look at your writing style, what do I see? Scientific "dogma" no different from religious "dogma", both just a sanctimonious.

    Oh I know, why should he put my hallowed Scientific bastion in the same basket as religion? I have found that fanatics (specialists) have the same narrow mindedness the world over, no matter if they be taliban, priests, scientists or whatever, it's always "my way is right and your way is wrong" therefore you have no right to exist. The old dualistic thinking that I wrote about earlier. Because rationalization would point to: that nothing can be specialized, or stand alone, because everything in some way is connected to and effected by everything else. Quantum physics is just now getting a glimpse of this.

    What you have not questioned is the TOOL of thought, and have you even considered that this in general may be a low grade and flawed TOOL, not ever capable of comprehending REALITY?

    Also you don't know what age I am or what I have read, but you scientifically??? made a presumption. When I was in high school it was Newtons physics, you know the one where the whole Universe was a great big mechanical clockwork. A soul less thing that somehow intelligence??? and consciousness sprung up out of. But there was a paradox in my mind, you know the laws of conservation of energy, (the can neither be created or destroyed thing) just transformed. Well then using this type of rationale, then why can consciousness not have existed in some form from the very beginning, and maybe the formation of whole thing had a consciousness base? Even Einstein had a theory about this, just the fact that it can be comprehended as operating under some kind of intelligible laws, weighs in heavily that it might just also have been intelligently created.

    After Newton in high school, post high school we had Relativity, and OH worse, Quantum Physics, and now lately the Quantum discovery that there seems to be be simultaneous, instantaneous effects at a distance, which kind of blows Relativity out of the water. And also that the expectation of outcome, can effect the actual outcome of Quantum experiments. Then there is the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, a real mind blower, and also the fact that Absolute Zero experiments gives rise to the question of "Zero Point Energy". Does it pervade all of space, as would seem to be implied, and therefore no "VACUUM", and then maybe light does "travel through" something after all. And by "travel through" not as starting here and ending up there, but effecting this thing that it might travel through in some way, to give the impression (to a relativistic mind) that it has a source and destination. So then there might be the possibility of "low temperature fusion" this little jewel got Pons and Fleischmann burned at the stake. Oh wait, but maybe they were onto something after all, can we now offer them Sainthood? You might get the impression that I am just a leeetle bit cynical about the scientific community??? and their scientific methods???? And you would be right, I have exactly the same cynicism for religion, they both use the same Scientific methods. "We are right and you are wrong".

    Now lately there are questions of Absolute highest temperatures, which would set a dualistic limit at the other end. Shake these all up and what do you get? THE SUN MAY NOT REVOLVE AROUND THE EARTH ANYMORE. In other words, a cross roads, a scientific renaissance, a revolution in thinking. Maybe questions about thought being able to determine REALITY at all, because all the things that I just mentioned, are still crouched in dualistic or relativistic concept. (So the point that I was making, from the very start, and which you seem to keep missing, is that anything that is subjected to the process of thought, including theologized religion, seems to be flawed.) Because originally all the world religions, and now apparently Quantum science, seem to be pointing to some other kind of awareness, or consciousness, that can comprehend REALITY. Or maybe the existence of a different REALITY? Like the stars are not holes in the canopy any more.

  5. Re:As a creative open source developer... on Long Live Closed-Source Software? · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Maybe there are some things that cannot easily be changed, so they are compelled to follow what went before. The model T Ford had 4 wheels, an engine, a fuel tank, a steering wheel, some seats and some pedals. A hundred years later we have the Ferrari or the Lamborghini, very sophisticated bleeding edge automobiles, and "dam" they still have 4 wheels, an engine, a fuel tank, a steering wheel, some seats and some pedals. How "uncreative" is this? (apologies to the bleeding edge automobiles that I didn't name.)

    Maybe it is because that if they were radically different, there would be a whole lot of other stuff (like a whole road and fuel support system) that would be obsolete. Or there would be no infrastructure at all within which they could operate. Example: Hydrogen cars, technically viable, but where is the supporting infrastructure? Now even before the automobile there were horse and buggys, but these still had wheels and needed road systems. So although automobiles were a "creative" advance, they were still a natural progression from what was before.

  6. Re:Skeptical on Necessity of Dark Energy Questioned · · Score: 1

    I've read just about every theory out there, I don't believe them, and I don't disbelieve them. They are after all only theories, that may or may not represent REALITY. But there are some "directly observable" and obvious natural conditions, there seems to be a range of consciousness and capabilities all the way from mineral, plant, animal, to human. It would seem that the higher consciousness or capability levels are aware of or "contain" the lower, but the lower are not aware of or "contain" the higher.

    One commonality that seems to pervade just about everything is the "spectrum" high frequency to low frequency, the small or refined can be found in the large and coarse etc. So what we see is not all of what there is, such as the limited slice of the electromagnetic spectrum, or the matter that is made from ever smaller and more refined particles.

    If you apply this same concept (spectrum) to consciousness or awareneness, then maybe the range goes away beyond thought, like blue is nowhere near X rays. And that what thought is conscious of, IS NOT NEARLY ALL OF WHAT IS. To be truly Scientific, you must question everything, including the TOOLS that you use, and the effect that these may have. Knowing that absolutely every effect is preceded by a cause, and that cause can also be thought or consciousness.

  7. Re:Worked for me. on Future AMD GPUs To Be More 'Open-Source Friendly' · · Score: 1

    I guess I was just the opposite, I bought a Nvidia card (mid range) about a year ago, even though I could have got better dollar for dollar performance from ATI. All because it looked like Nvidia was leaning more toward Linux support. (I could find more sources of Nvidia Linux drivers on the web)

    I typically had been ATI all the way back to "ATI Wonder".

  8. Re:Skeptical on Necessity of Dark Energy Questioned · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Exactly, even though we don't need to postulate the presence of "Dark Matter" to construct mathematical models of the expanding Universe, Einstein did not need the "ether" theory to construct "relativity" mathematical models that incorporated how light seems to behave.

    Still that does not prove that the "ether" either exists or doesn't exist. Just that it is not necessary to incorporate into a mathematical model, that will more or less express what is observed. But we still have the question of "zero point energy", what exactly is it? And what possible connections or similarities might it have with "dark matter" and "ether" theories.

    I have my own theory, and it is about the limitations of thought or of comprehension. Thought itself seems to work on a relativistic principle, where the polar opposite is always simultaneously needed as a contrast. Example: Up/Down, In/Out, Near/Far, Good/Bad etc. etc. So Einstein's theory of Relativity does not necessarily explain how the Universe works, it only explains how the limitations of thought work. Thought as a medium of awareness can therefore never grasp the Absolute, or the Non-Relativistic Totality, because that requires a different kind of awareness than thought is capable of.

  9. Re:The question is... on Solar Tree Bears Fruit · · Score: 1

    I believe they are aware of this very question. I just saw a program on wind farms, and one of those wind generators, generates the energy it took to make it in about 3 months, and they have a 20 year life span. These numbers would probably be different for solar energy, both in manufacturing energy and generating efficiency, but I believe the outcome should still be a net positive.

  10. Re:Well if anyone knows... on Microsoft Complains About Google's Monopoly Abuse · · Score: 1

    Brassman you are correct, there is a subtle difference between the two statements. And yes as you point out, statements of intent should be reasonably attainable.

  11. Re:Well if anyone knows... on Microsoft Complains About Google's Monopoly Abuse · · Score: 1

    I think you are missing the whole point here. Most companies including the one that I work for, have a "Mission Statement" or a statement of intent. This is a basic organizational principle, as something to measure actions and performance against. IF SOMETHING IS NOT A STATED INTENT, IT IS DOUBTFUL IT WILL EVER BE MADE TO HAPPEN. Even the US constitution is such a statement of intent, and look at how they try to circumvent that by corrupt interpretation.

    So what is the difference between these two statements of intent "Do no evil" and "Cut off their air supply". Then tell me which belongs to which company. It can clearly be argued that MS didn't become evil, they had evil intentions from the start.

    So even if Google got to be an advertising monopoly, HOW IS THIS BAD FOR THE CONSUMER OR THE CITIZEN? Google sells few or no products to the citizen, most of their consumer products can be used for free. You could say that increased advertising costs would eventually and indirectly be passed to the consumer, but then companies decide what their advertising budgets are going to be, so Google will always be competing for advertising dollars, by offering "VALUE", the best advertising bang for the buck. Can you see how this differs from "cut off their air supply" stomp out all competition, and hold the no options consumer to ransom with rip-off pricing. Can you not see the expression "God is not mocked, for what a man sows that will he also reap" for there is no escaping the immutable Laws of the Universe,(reciprocation) deep irony of all this? The "what goes around comes around" thing.

  12. Re:Why choose? on Microsoft and Google Duke It Out For the Future · · Score: 1

    With the Google model your data can reside on your own PC, it is the collaboration, revisions, edition etc. that can be shared over the web. The difference is that MS started off with PC based products that they are trying to adapt to web collaboration. Google started out with web based products, that they are trying to adapt to store data on the PC and still operate even when the web is down. And yes the Google products are mostly free just like Open Office. Also the live storage that Google offers for free is more than I get for my live e-mail and data storage on a large Enterprise System.

  13. Re:More important question on RIAA Backs Down On "Unlicensed Investigator" · · Score: 1

    The investigation took place inside the computer of the person they are suing. That would be in the State in which that person lives, irrespective of where MediaSentry is located or licensed. It will probably all be about where the information resides.

  14. Re:Best quote ever! on NASA Snaps Mysterious "Night-Shining" Clouds · · Score: 1

    I don't even know if it is honest. They know a lot about changes that are happening in the solar system and on various planets in general. The changes to the suns magnetic field, and the sun spots, and the record sized solar flares. Then we have the possibly of an earth magnetic field reversal, put it all together and what might we have? Ah, but we don't want to alarm anybody until the whole sky lights up.

  15. Re:Just what we need on Gene Found to Explain Repeated Mistakes · · Score: 3, Funny

    "Personal Responsibility" What's that? Is it in the dictionary somewhere between "blame personal circumstances or others" and "It's not my fault".

  16. Re:Since when?... on Did SCO Get Linux-mob Justice? · · Score: 1

    Hey, I have been following this episode on Groklaw from 2003, and they got it right about this "legal transfer" requirement back in 2003. They even predicted the outcome way back then. Some comment about SCO and toilet flushing. So you can't put all publications in the bad journalism basket.

  17. Re:Uuuuubunnnntttuuuuuuuu Correction... on MPAA Forced To Take Down University Toolkit · · Score: 1

    Thank you, do you know how many cute posts I had to read down just to find out what the item is.

  18. Re:Are people still falling for this? on Google Pages to be Replaced by JotSpot · · Score: 1

    "What could go wrong?" From my experience not a lot more than currently goes wrong with loss of data on walled enterprise systems. Google gives more storage for free, than what I presently have for my e-mail on an enterprise system. At least with Google you might be able to reach the Statute of Limitations storage requirements. I believe Google might have a few extra servers for hardware and data back-up.

  19. Re:Cabling expense on Flexible Optic Fiber Promises Cheaper Last Mile · · Score: 1

    Cable companies do not dig trenches to lay cable around neighborhoods, or even to replace existing infrastructure. It is done by horizontal drilling and pulling through a PVC type conduit. Then the cable gets pulled inside that. No digging up streets or sidewalks, and if it happens to be fiber optic, then less chance of lightening zapping your expensive electronics than with copper or wireless.

  20. Re:Why the LONG timelines? on China's First Lunar Satellite Sends Back Pictures · · Score: 1

    They brought back a whole lot of old rocks 40 years ago. They were pretty quiet about sharing any interesting science findings information with the public. Just a lot of political jargon. There were unofficial reports that the astronauts had seen and maybe even photographed some kind of alien spacecraft, which was denied, denied, denied.

    Pretty soon the public lost interest, and even started to question why the money would not be better spent on down to earth projects.

    The inevitable: Your going to spend our tax dollars and then lie to us, F.U.

  21. Re:The beginning of the end on RIAA College Litigations Getting A Bumpy Ride · · Score: 1

    You say we are hanging in the balance here, between "We the People" and "We the Corporations", and "We the self interested Government" and "These truths we hold to be self evident".

    That is the slippery slope that you forecast.

  22. Re:News Flash from our cute neighbors to the north on RCMP Won't Go After Personal Filesharers · · Score: 1

    This might be depending on a broken crutch. How long do you think it will be before computers are doing creative work on their own. Already a lot of models / designs come out of computers. Soon to be literature and music. So will computers then have patent and copy rights?

    When planning the future you got to look down the road a little bit here. Ability and performance is what is going to protect the US economy, not some hypothetical rights that they are trying to foist on the rest of the world, but won't be able to, China is already too much of a powerhouse to be bullied into that disadvantageous position.

  23. Re:Enough with the spin on First RIAA Case Victim Finally Speaks Out · · Score: 1

    Hey, if you have Tubular Bells then I know thereabouts your age, because I have Tubular Bells too, on vinyl.

    If the medium did not exist then copying would not be possible. Yes? So if there were no printing presses or tape recorders of Computers etc., what would musicians and writers do? Would we not have bards, storytellers, scribes, etc. like we used to have? These occupations used to have no more special rights, than the hewers of wood and the drawers of water, yes? Then along comes inventions by others, printing presses, magnetic media, etc. etc. and now these bards, storytellers or scribes have more rights than the hewers of wood and the drawers of water.

    Explain the logic of that arrangement to me, because I seem to be missing something about what makes these types more special, or useful than the producers of food, the builders of houses, makers of cars, and drillers for oil etc. Why exactly should they have more rights connected to their occupation than any other occupation?

    Henry Ford may not have invented the assembly line, but he refined it and made it a commercial success. The success was that he was able to produce endless copies of affordable cars. But that "copy" process adds value, and continues to add value even today, because making the copy is not something that I can economically do for myself, but if I could (economically or otherwise) it would not be a legal or a copyright problem. Only if I commercialized it. (sold copies) Why does this same concept still not apply when I can make copies economically?

    The people who write, use a language that was invented before they were born, and was taught to them (writing) in school, they probably used a keyboard or other tools that was invented by someone else, and the same goes for musicians, the instruments, the beat and rhythm, all existed before they did. And when they use that to create, they want special rights on the creation? The 2X4s existed before the carpenter, if he builds a house, a special creation, why can he not earn revenue from that for all of his life? Is there not some kind of absurdity, with the create once and earn always "rights" concept?

    Now take this concept a little bit further, these bards and scribes etc used to have connection to the Kings Court, that is how they made their lively hood, they performed for and looked to the Kings or Lords Court for income. So extend this concept a little bit further yet, and now they should look to the Government for income. The Canadian modernization of this "Kings/Lords Court"concept is tax the recording tools and media, and distribute the proceeds to the bards and scribes. And let the peasants freely copy and enjoy music too.

  24. Re:News Flash from our cute neighbors to the north on RCMP Won't Go After Personal Filesharers · · Score: 1

    You seem to be fixed in a paradigm of a couple of hundred years ago. Also you appear to be unaware of the shades of legal terminologies. Copyright is not a property, copyright as implied in the name is a "right". But if it were not for printing pressed and other copy media what purpose would it have. Would we still not need the bards and the scribes like for hundreds of years in the fast, they either made their living by performing, or actually copying documents themselves physically. In fact I believe the Jewish scrolls are still done this way.

    So because someone else invented the printing press, or magnetic media, or whatever, then this gives content types some special rights, where they don't have to perform or work any more? So then the inventors of these devices should get a cut of all copies, because they made it possible. You say my logic about this is flawed, then explain how copy"RIGHTS" can be justified, because if I took any literary work, sentence by sentence, I could find a replicate sentence in some other work that would suggest plagiarism. The same could be said for any riff. It is all built on what went before, there is nothing new (original) under the sun except human folly.

  25. Re:News Flash from our cute neighbors to the north on RCMP Won't Go After Personal Filesharers · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yes, a few hundred years ago they used to hang the hungry peasants for hunting game on the Landlords Estate. That was the LAW, but times have changed and that law no longer applies. And neither does a pile of other crappy laws that created class distinction by giving certain groups of people "SPECIAL RIGHTS".

    Patent and copyright laws are no different than the segregation laws that finally got knocked down. It is an anachronism, belongs in another time and place, where the monarchy could control the presses and thus control the dissemination of subversive (to them) ideas.

    Everyone who ever wrote a sentence, or came up with an idea, was educated in the school system, and by the society that they live in. And since the actual nature of thought being what it actually is, it needs foundational material on which to build. Ideas are not actually unique they are just recycled and applied in different context. The working concept of a computer existed many years before there was an actual computer. Ever hear of Charles Babbage? Shakespeare or Newton or Angelo are always somewhere in the background. So then where do these special RIGHTS come from????